Man Admits Murdering Vet Catherine Gowing

A man has admitted murdering Irish vet Catherine Gowing, who went missing in North Wales last year.

The 37-year-old's body has never been fully recovered, although remains were found at two rural locations near her home in Flintshire, North Wales, and near Chester.

Clive Sharp, 46, of no fixed address, has pleaded guilty to her murder at a hearing at Mold Crown Court. His sentencing has been adjourned to February 25.

The judge said that he would not need pre-sentence or psychiatric reports and that clearly there could only be one sentence - that of life imprisonment.

But he added the minimum length of the sentence was something he would need to think about.

Ms Gowing was living in New Brighton, Flintshire, when she disappeared on October 12, 2012.

She had been working at a vet's practice in Mold.

She was last seen at about 8pm on the day she went missing, when she was picked up on CCTV leaving an Asda supermarket in Queensferry.

Her burned-out car was found in a disused quarry near her home a week later.

It took nearly three weeks before two sets of remains, later identified as Ms Gowing's, were discovered in a shallow pool in Sealand, Flintshire, and at Higher Ferry, next to the River Dee, in Chester.

Her murder is said to have taken place sometime between October 11 and October 17 in North Wales.

More than 300 people attended a remembrance service in Kinnitty, County Offaly, in the Irish Republic, earlier this month.

Her sister Emma told a packed church that she was "the closest person to perfection", she knew.